A commissioner's decision to refuse consent for a family-owned subdivision on the western shoreline of Lake Wanaka will be appealed to the Environment Court.
Sharpridge Trust's application to the Queenstown Lakes District Council for three residential building platforms across four lots in an outstanding natural landscape at West Wanaka has been turned down by independent commissioner Denis Nugent.
The proposal was a variation on an earlier resource consent issued by the council which enables Sharpridge to create two building platforms.
Mr Nugent said the information provided by the applicant was inadequate when considering both the effects of the proposal and the objectives and policies of the district plan.
He could, therefore, not make an assessment on whether development of the additional building platform would have significant adverse visual effects.
However, he said even if the visual effects were not significant, the insertion of a ''node of domestication'' in the location proposed for the new platform would ''significantly disrupt the landscape and natural character values of that area''.
Sharpridge Trust spokeswoman Gill Lucas told the Otago Daily Times yesterday she was shocked by the ''unfair'' decision.
''We are disappointed as a family. We agreed to everything they wanted, more or less.''
She later contacted the ODT to confirm the family would appeal the decision.
Julian Haworth, president of the Upper Clutha Environmental Society, which opposed the development, said Mr Nugent had made a ''sensible decision'' consistent with the district plan and resource management act.
